Micro-corrugated cardboard and its market application prospects

In recent years, in order to meet the requirements of packaging industry reduction and environmental protection, micro-corrugated cardboard is regarded as one of the mainstream packaging materials in the future packaging market.

Corrugated design of fine corrugated

According to market demand, corrugated cardboard can be divided into different specifications according to its strength, stiffness, and cushioning properties. According to the order of size, the corrugated type is arranged in English letters as D, K, A, C, B, E, F, G, N, O. The most common types in the market are A, B, C, E. The flute type is collectively called the micro flute from the EO flute.

The production of micro-corrugated cardboard is a systematic project, from corrugated design, corrugated roll structure and accuracy, single-facer form, operation accuracy of all equipment in the production line to paper selection, paper tension control that matches the ideal speed during operation, Temperature and humidity control, glue preparation, glue amount control, cardboard quality control, etc. all have different specific requirements corresponding to A, C, B and other conventional corrugated cardboard.

The micro-corrugated cardboard is characterized by a large number of flutes, a light weight and low strength of the corrugated base paper. Taking the flutes per 300mm length as an example, the number of G type flutes is 185±12, the number of N type flutes is 200±15, the number of O type flutes is 267, and the number of B type flutes is 50±2. For a pair of corrugated rollers of the same diameter, the meshing number of fine corrugations is 3-5 times higher than that of B type corrugations.

Quality and Process Control of Micro-corrugated Base Paper

When ordinary corrugated base paper with a basis weight of 150g/m2 bypasses the C-shaped corrugated top, it can be smoothly transitioned and formed on the 1.25mm radius of the corrugated top arc. When the same base paper enters the G-shaped fine corrugated, the It is difficult to transition and form on the top arc with a radius of 0.16mm. Too small a bending radius will cause the paper fibers to break at the top of the flute. Therefore, the fine corrugated paper must be selected from the base paper with better strength, less than 100g/m2 basis weight, and uniform air permeability, water absorption and humidity.

In principle, a high-quality corrugated board production line is the balance of paper strength, tension, pressure, humidity, temperature and glue formula at an ideal speed. Uneven base paper humidity, instability of glue paste performance, fluctuation of glue amount, imbalance of preheating control and heating imbalance will cause tension changes and break the balance at the ideal speed point.

Market application prospects
In recent years, in order to meet the requirements of the packaging industry for volume reduction and environmental protection, the trend of micro-corrugated cardboard has risen. Countries such as the United States, Sweden, Germany, Spain and other countries have begun to expand the production scale of E-flute and F-flute, and start to To explore the direction, some countries have begun to apply N flute (flute height 0.46mm) and O flute (flute height 0.30mm).

In the application fields of traditional fiber cartons (such as wine, footwear, small appliances, hardware tools, microelectronics, computer software, etc.), micro corrugated cartons have begun to compete with traditional corrugated cartons for the market. According to market analysts, in the next 5 years, the demand for micro-corrugated cardboard in Europe will increase by an average of 5.6% each year, and the total increase will reach 7 billion square meters.

Fine corrugated cardboard can be directly printed by offset printing, which can obtain exquisite patterns without deforming the corrugated cardboard, reducing or destroying the strength of the cardboard due to printing. The direct printing method of offset printing makes the micro-corrugated packaging more exquisite, highly display and advertising, and greatly improves the quality of the packaging. Therefore, more and more industries are beginning to use micro-corrugated packaging as sales packaging. In addition to traditional food, toys, home appliances and other industries, many industries that require outer packaging and gifting, such as handicrafts, medicines and health products, have also begun to use micro-corrugated packaging.

The exquisite printing effect of micro-corrugated cardboard makes it a better choice for making poster-style corrugated cardboard, display racks and other display packaging. In foreign countries, due to the high die-cutting precision of the mechanical equipment itself, in the production of poster-style corrugated cardboard display racks, a large number of micro-corrugated cardboard such as E-flute, N-flute, and F-flute have been used to replace traditional PVC boards, so that the entire poster-style corrugated cardboard display The rack is lighter in weight and lower in cost, not only easy to transport, but also easy to recycle.

With the development of Internet e-commerce, the logistics industry is showing explosive growth, and the transportation of products in the logistics industry is inseparable from packaging. Therefore, the scale of the printing and packaging industry will gradually expand in the future. Micro corrugated paperboard, with its good compressive performance, good cushioning effect, good printing adaptability, etc., will make a big difference in the reduction packaging market in the future. At the same time, micro corrugated paperboard can effectively save transportation costs after replacing traditional corrugated paperboard. Reducing transportation volume, lightening transportation weight, and saving transportation costs have a very broad market prospect.